I’ve recently been exploring other parts of Chicago’s north side than those I’m used to visiting, including Rogers Park, the neighborhood just north of mine. This culturally, ethnically and economically diverse area is home to Loyola University’s North Shore campus (go Ramblers!), beautiful, old homes, a wide assortment of eating and drinking establishments to fit most any taste and wallet, and a chain of gorgeous lakefront beaches. I don’t know why I had never spent much time in Rogers Park in the years I’ve lived in nearby Edgewater, as it is a truly lovely area. I was on my way home from Leone Beach Park when I spotted our featured car in the parking lot.

The word “vast” came to mind as I took in this view of Lake Michigan, and also when looking at our featured car in full profile. The basic dimensions of the ’78 Town Car (233″ long, 80″ wide, 55″ tall) dwarfed those of the downsized, same-year Cadillac Sedan DeVille (221.1″ long, 76.4″ wide, and slightly higher at 55.3″ tall). The ’78 Chrysler New Yorker Brougham four-door, then in its last year, measured in at 231″ long and 79.5″ wide; I couldn’t find a measurement for its height, but let’s just call the Lincoln the size winner (by a hair) based on length and width.

I’m guessing as to the model year, as both the 1978 and ’79 Continental Town Car had the larger-diameter rear wheel cutouts in comparison to the ’77 which otherwise shared its styling with the latter two years of this design. Even from a distance, the sheer size of this classic luxury car was apparent, seeming to take up most of what are generously sized parking spaces. The dimensions of this TC seemed even more exaggerated in comparison to the midsized cars and SUVs parked near it.

I love its shade of blue. In the lyrics of the great Billy Joel, this car is surely a “true, baby blue Continental”. This Lincoln may not strike that much of a rock ‘n roll chord with me (it’s giving me more of a yacht rock feel), but I do wonder if its original owner owned and wore a polyester (leisure?) suit of the same color. That would have been a sight – or “out of sight” in ’70s parlance.

Standing on the pier looking northward toward the nearby suburb of Evanston gave me a sense of just how vast Lake Michigan is. After all, it is one of the largest bodies of freshwater in the world, much like this Town Car was the last of the biggies left at the very end of its decade. Similarly, I imagined that the interior of this Town Car was also a wide-open sea of soft, blue velour across acres of front and rear bench seat. Much like this gorgeous view of Lake Michigan as it compares to this beautiful, nicely kept Lincoln, sometimes nothing impresses more than sheer scale.

Rogers Park, Chicago, Illinois.Monday, July 16, 2018.

69 Comments

When these were new, our neighbors (builders of the subdivision) had two of these, his and hers. They definitely had presence on the road, and spoke of success. Later, they traded them for the smaller Town Cars which while nice looking, didn’t have that imposing of a shape, especially compared to Cadillacs of the early 80s.

I wouldn’t mind picking one up now, just to revel in all of the excess and sheer size of it today. I do have the room, but I am sure many of these wouldn’t fit in a lot of garages, or it would be a tight fit!

These predicted the styling of the 1982 models. Nice cars, but way overstated, way too huge, and very representative of how American automakers had come to think size mattered most. This example is still in fine shape, a very nice find indeed!

Wow – thanks, Eddie (and PaulChgo, below). I didn’t research / realize that this one was a ’79 Collector’s Series. If the Wikipedia entry and also a separate classified add I found are correct, then this one is one of just 197 finished in “Medium Blue”.

Actually, I don’t think this is a Collector’s Edition – I believe that those had a gold-color plating on the grille bars, along with some other identifying badging. That missing opera window was always available by special order, going back to 1975 IIRC.

I agree. It would have “Collectors Series” script on the sail panel instead of the star emblem, and the gold in the grille, if it were one. And it’s very tough to tell which shade of Lincoln blue it is – they’re quite nuanced. Guess we’ll never know if it’s a ’78 or ’79

I *think* the oval opera window was an option from ’75-’79, but one that was fitted to most cars. The ’79 Collector’s Series didn’t have them, and it seems many standard ’79 Continentals and Town Cars also didn’t to ape the look (kind of like how green-with-gold-stripes Ford Explorers that *didn’t* have the expensive Eddie Bauer package used to be popular). So I’m guessing this is a ’79 despite nothing in the pics proving it.

Great post & pics. One way to think about Lake Michigan’s size is that Switzerland could fit in it, but Lake Superior is even bigger.

I use to car pool with a woman who looked and had the same cheery midwestern accent as actress Edie McClurg, each time I got in her then 11-12 y/o 1979 Collectible Edition of the Lincoln Continental Town Car I would say “this thing is bigger than my apartment!” Although I learned to drive in a large 1973 Ford LTD that Lincoln really did feel BIG.

I concur, literally. I too learned to drive in a ’73 LTD, and when a friend of mine’s neighbor bought one of these (in triple emerald green) he took us for a ride and I was blown away by all the space inside. It dwarfed my LTD (2-door hardtop) in both length and interior space.

FFWD 20 years and a trip to the Bahamas in 1998, when this car would be two decades old. We went on a day trip and called for a car at the front desk and one of these in limo form pulled up to take us where we wanted to go. I think my entire 2007 Mustang would have fit inside this thing’s interior!

It still messed with my head that the steering wheel was on the left (where it belongs) yet we were driving on the wrong side of the road in the Bahamas. I guess it’s cheaper to ship our old cars over there from Florida than it is to get correctly built cars for their roads from across the pond. ;o) These Lincolns and Cadillacs were popular with the livery services in those islands back then.

The Lincoln was a little bigger than the LTD. Slightly longer. More back seat leg room. However if anything the front f the LTD had slightly more room due to the less poofy seats and the rear seat in the LTD coupe was wider due to only armrest in center of the seat. LTD also had better side windows no failure prone smoker windows and no awful hydroboost brakes. A 75- 78 LTD landau coupe was very Lincoln like. Had a 78 LTD landau coupe and a 79 Continental. The LTD had Lincoln turbine wheels and flip up lights and a 60s Continental star hood ornament. I called it my mark 4 1/2. It was the best car I ever had. Fast and reliable and good on gas.

The opera windows were optional and delete could be ordered. Personally I think it looses major brougham points not having them.

The “smoker windows” and the hydro-boost brakes(with rear disc) were offered on the LTD as options.
This is the first time I’ve heard someone refer to hydro-boost as awful.
I have no experience with them. What made them awful?

Daniel Stern

Posted August 8, 2018 at 10:00 PM

I’ve groused about hydroboost plenty over the years. I’ve never encountered an instance of it that gave pedal feel I could describe favourably. There are plenty of vacuum-boosted setups with lousy pedal feel, too, but hydroboost always struck me as a ridiculous bit of problematic Rube Goldberg stupidity. That might be irrational and without basis, but…there it is.

Carter Gorman

Posted August 9, 2018 at 12:59 PM

I don’t know what hydro-boost brakes are. Today is the first I’ve heard of them. I learn all kinds of automotive stuff here. 😀

Signed, Automotive Luddite

Martin

Posted August 9, 2018 at 3:53 PM

Ive got a 77 town car with the hydroboost, I LOVE them. that and the 4 wheel disk brakes really can have this 5000 LB barge stopping on an ‘Oversized” dime…. only problem is if the car stalls out for any reason you have to STAND on the pedal to get the car to stop…. (or drop it in neutral and crank the key a bit) lol

I just consulted the indispensable Oldcarbrochures.com’s ’78 Lincoln brochure. The oval opera window was standard on the sedans. No mention of a delete option. However, they did mention a special “Williamsburg” edition which was shown without an opera window. And the high end “Collector’s Edition” cars also lacked opera windows.

I think the non-opera window cars were primarily, if not entirely, these special edition cars.

We took our youngest daughter to language camp in Bemidji, Concordia College immersion program (very cool) from Colorado. Stopped in a WalMart in Duluth, it was pretty cold in July, not a single sweatshirt!

As the old MN joke goes, “What’s wrong with California? It doesn’t get cold enough to kill off the weak ones.”

A friend’s mother had one…yellowish with beige leather. She didn’t trust her son to drive it, but she trusted me?!? I was 16 and had no fear. What I mainly remember is just BULK…the dumb thing was enormous.

I’m pretty good with these, but I have always had a hard time telling the 78 from the 79. I went to look up the color (which looks like Wedgewood Blue) and Lincoln used two separate paint codes/formulas for that color in 78 and 79, so there is a difference, but with all the vagaries in lighting and photography I wouldn’t want to use this as a basis to tell.

I love these without the opera window, which I always considered a stupid affectation in the sedans.

I was very familiar with these last huge Town Cars, and on several occasions drove a neighbor’s 1977. I had driven 1964, 1965, 1966 and 1967 Continental sedans owned by my grandfather and two uncles, and they all leaned excessively in the turns. By comparison, the size of the 1977 made it seem like an oil tanker. The windshield was low, and the hood extremely long, with tall, straight fenders and that huge raised center hood section. In 1978, I bought a new downsized Cadillac Sedan de Ville, and it felt like a sports car by comparison with the behemoth Lincoln.

There was a bit of cheapening with the ’78 Continentals. The brand-specific dash that had been used on this generation since 1970 was replaced by one that used the Ford/Mercury dash as a basis. Here is the ’78…

I agree on that dash, which actually went back to the early 70s (with a few updates along the way). I had mixed feelings when my Dad got his 78 – on the one hand I liked that they had done updates and liked the silver-faced instruments with the lighting that came through from the back but I was disappointed that it started to look like the FoMoCo Generic Dash ™ of about everything after 1972.

Funny thing is that Ford actually had multiple steering wheels during that era. Despite that, they all had a very similar appearance. The highest version had the wood-look inserts and cruise control. The lower spec versions were all vinyl.

The shift control is the same one used in my 1972 Maverick LDO. My Dad’s 1978 Mark V Cartier used it as well. Compare to the Lincolns of the early 60’s with so much unique switchgear. Of course they were low volume cars that didn’t turn nearly the profit of these Lincolns!

That dash looks like a 79, the 78 had “brushed silver” instead of wood, they changed to wood in 79. i have a mint 79 TC with that dash and the oval window delete just like the feature car. Drives like a ship, love the long hood and ability to see the fenders on the corners makes it easier to park than my 2009 Pontiac G8. the length is 19 foot 5 so just fits in my 20 foot garage.

Having heard about surfing as a child living on the shore of Lake Erie, I never gave it serious thought. Having moved to Florida as an adolescent, the waves here seemed too small, compared to what I’d heard of California and Hawaii. In high school I found many people did in fact surf Florida’s Atlantic coast, even if the waves are usually puny. On a vacation trip back to New York a few years ago, i couldn’t help but notice the waves on Lake Erie were surfable, by Florida standards, but it was a windy day.

My dad had one and offered it to me about 20 years ago. It was too nice to park outside, so if I owned it, I would want it kept garaged. The problem was, the 20′ deep garage on my house isn’t deep enough to hold this car! IIRC, the overall length bumper tip to bumper tip is something like 20′ 6″.

So I passed on the car, which is best experienced while being a passenger in the limousine-like rear seat.

Regarding the rear passenger seat, while I have always enjoyed that experience, it seems everyone always says that about big cars; that they’re more fun to ride in than drive. I like being driven in them. But having driven models made between 1975 and 1997, I’ve always enjoyed driving them, too. I love looking out over those big hoods, the super assisted steering, the total lack of road feel, merging onto the highway and, especially in the big block and pre 1980 models, feeling that torque, also, the float as you change lanes or hit a bump. Throwing it into cruise at 65-75 and feeling totally disconnected. Sure, I didn’t much enjoy hustling my Olds through a mountainous scenic route in Vermont as I was spinning the wheel like a cartoon yachtsman in a storm, but since don’t enjoy driving more performance/feel oriented cars under almost any other circumstance the yacht is still a net win. I guess what’s “sloppy handling” to some feels “soft and pleasantly effortless” to me. I only wish the rest of life were as easy as piloting a Continental up a suburban parkway.

I’ve always liked these last of the BIG Lincolns. ‘Vast’ is a great word to describe them. I’m sure Lincoln enjoyed the pickup in sales after Cadillac downsized for ’77.

I can imagine driving this beastie to my local Wal-Mart (with its narrow parking spaces) and all the other drivers in the lot would look and mutter to themselves “What’s THAT?!?!”. It’s impossible not to notice these barges; they simply ~impel~ one to pay heed. Even if it’s only to criticize them for being too big.

The way to tell a ’78 Continental from a ’79 is to look at the dash. The upper section around the IP in the ’78s had a clear covering over a light silver stripe motif that I found rather tasteful. The ’79s had wood-look all the way up around the IP.

Funny you’ve posted this, as I saw a ’78 very similarly-colored last week for sale.

Of course, I’m quite biased, as I have a ’78 Continental Town Coupe, but I love these things. I’ve talked about the driving “dynamics” of these before, but what they lack in dynamism they more than make up with smoothness and isolation. I’ve joked I could run over a medium-sized child and not notice-wouldn’t see ’em over the hood and wouldn’t feel ’em under the wheels. “Vast” is a great word to describe these-vast expanses of hood, vast expanses of space, vast turning radius…

I get why these sold well. You can’t help but feel like a big shot driving one.

Back in the late ’70s I remember reading about some sort of road rally going on and the guys from “Car and Driver” magazine entered a Lincoln Continental sedan, which at that time was the largest standard production car you could buy. I think it was an economy challenge. The Continental got predictable lousy gas mileage, but then the guys from “Car and Driver” reran the course with the air-conditioning on and the windows rolled down and managed to get even worse mileage.

I’m pretty sure this is the same reason why the tail pipe on the ’79 T-Bird-LTD-II-Cougar exited at a 45 degree angle right behind the right rear wheel, as opposed to going right to the bumper on earlier models. Saved 18 inches of pipe stock.

To think these were still made in 1979 is mind-boggling. But of a Ford trait, isn’t it? Just like holding on to the Panther cars until way past their retirement age, or keeping mechanical brakes for years after the competition had gone to hydraulic.

In this case though, I’m glad they kept making this gigantic dinosaur for so long, and with so few substantial changes. And it’s nice to see one sans opera windows, for a change. This kind of car can afford a bit less bling.

I grew up seeing both these and their ’80-’84 successors in large numbers. The pre-’80 cars always struck me as cartoonishly, outlandishly, garishly obese versions of the proportionally-correct, pleasantly trim ’80-’84 cars. That opinion is opposite those who scorn the ’80-’84 cars as cartoonishly shrunken shadows of the “real” ones, the pre-’80 ones. It’s all accordin’ to where your boogaloo situation stands, you understand!

It’s remarkable how the passage of time works. Looking at it now, it has somewhat the same impact as a big 1932 or so Lincoln would have had on me in the 60s or 70s. I never thought i would say this, but this car has a huge amount of presence and impact.

On my walk to elementary school there was a small local grocery store whose owner had one of these, a coupe in this same baby blue with a white roof. It was too long for the parking space he put it in and I had to walk into the street to go around it.

AMcA,
At the time velour was at record prices due to the high demand and difficulty of velour harvesting. I wonder how many velouripods had to lose their fur just to make one Lincoln. Now the velouripod population is finally recovering after years of overfarming, much as the MBTex-ions came back after irresponsible hunting by Mercedes poachers in the decades before the Synthetic Threaded INterior Conservation Initiative.